The World's Highest Bridge in China is Ready for Traffic

In the recent years, China achieved many notable accomplishments in the field of engineering. Now, they crossed an even larger milestone.After three years of construction, the world’s highest bridge officially opened in Guizhou provenience of Southwest China. Known as the Beipanjiang Bridge, the bridge opened for business on December 29, 2016. The province of Guizhou already possesses seven of the 10 highest bridges in China, reports the State-run Chinese media organization, China Central Television (CCTV).

The enormous bridge crosses directly above the Beipanjiang valley. Shortly after the bridge’s opening, many commuters and sightseers gathered to cross the world’s highest bridge. The colossal structure runs with four lanes and stands above the rugged mountains and gorge, at a striking 565 meters (1,854 feet) above the valley with 1,341-meter (around 4,400 feet) long.

Moreover, the bridge height is equivalent to a 200-storey building. The Beipanjiang Bridge passes over the Beipan river, a part of the great Pearl River basin.

Watch a splendid time-lapse video by CGTN below:

This world’s highest bridge Beipanjiang has just overtaken the Sidu River Bridge in Hubei province. Now the second place is bagged by the Sidu River Bridge and the third is taken by Puli Bridge.

The construction of the marvel bridge cost around 1 billion yuan (around $143 million). The new bridge will shorten the travel time between Guizhou and Yunnan. Now the travel time limits to an hour and a half, which usually lasts for five long hours.

“In October 2013, the Minister of Transport approved the Beipanjiang Bridge and gave us 8.9 million yuan in scientific research funding,” Zhou Ping, director of the Beipanjiang Project, told CCTV. “Our project provided match-funding of around 6.1 million yuan, bringing the research fund to around 15 million. Many institutes, including Jiaotong University, Guizhou Highway engineering group, and the Guizhou office of transportation joined together to conduct research and development. We developed a new kind of technology called cantilever erection by longitudinal launching, and this significantly shortened construction time.”

The construction was affected by the wind, experts said to CCTV. This required a high degree of accuracy while working. Usually, crews install the pre-assembled sections on the bridge. However, for this project the parts were assembled on-site. Moreover, the engineering side also faced many challenges.

"Where to place the bridge piers was a problem. The gorge here is over 500 meters deep, so how are we going to design the structure of the bridge to deal with the strong wind field problem?'' said Liu Bo, deputy chief engineer, CCCC Highway Consultants Co., LTD, to CCTV.

Despite these difficulties, the team successfully completed the bridge. According to CCTV, the bridge now serves as part of the highway network in Guizhou, integrated into the regional grid in southwest China. This includes the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan as well as Chongqing municipality.

A concrete gravity dam called the Guangzhou Dam lies just a few miles to the north of the Beipanjiang Bridge. This dam generates electricity using hydroelectric power.